To ask if your teenage children swear? And do you mind?

[MrsFring]

I have three teenagers; Dd1 (19), DSL (17) and Dd2 (14). I swear. Quite a bit when I've got my dander up. The older two swear in extremis but not very much, their choice. Dd2, however, has started to swear much more frequently and 'cunt' is her currently favoured word. She tends to use it when upset by something on the news or when fighting with her brother (which is most of the time). She assures me that she never uses it at school when a teacher could hear her.

She is a very principled, passionate girl and does tend to get a bit carried away. DH is more bothered by her swearing than I am, I suspect that he considers it unladylike but would never dare to say that to me.

What do think? Would you mind?

"hang with", word factory?!

Are you, in fact, a teenager yourself?

Sadly I am 47.

The first time I ever heard an adult say cunt was a visiting lecturer talking to my A level class about Chaucer.

She was obviously uneducated

The correlation between swearing and education is just preposterously thick.

Why do people repeat it? It looks considerably more stupid than saying fuck ever would.

Assuming that people who swear must be unintelligent is a bit - well, unintelligent.

sorry thewordfactory just because the people you hang with swear doesn't mean its absurd for other people to dislike this behaviour - that's only an opinion and you know what they say about opinion ;)

peggy no one's saying it's absurd for other people to dislike swearing themselves (no one's making you swear, are they?), what people are saying is it's absurd for you to equate level of education/intelligence with how much others swear.

the first time I heard an adult say 'cunt' was when me and my bro were teens and were going to see Shakin Stevens at the Astoria with me mother and godmother -

well mother was driving down Pratt St., and brother said 'I wonder what pratt means' lol as if he was all innocent. Well the Godmother turned round and said 'I think it means 'cunt'' which just stunned us into silence for the rest of the journey!

I love my Godmother...xx

Oh you can dislike swear words, just as you be can dislike quinoa or ironing.

But making assumptions about people who do like them is lacking much intelligence or imagination or experience.

And I'm not sure why any right minded parent would want to pass on such facile judgements to their DC.

No offence liv but it is the micromanaged and overcontrolled children that either cannot deal with adult life or go crazy when they sniff freedom.

Since when does a house rule about swearing mean children are micromanaged and over controlled?

Mine do , the youngest is 12 and will mutter ffs under her breath occasionally , the oldest who is older than a teenager now does , but it tends to be when it is called for , like the time i dropped a very heavy board out of the loft onto his foot . I swear when I am very angry , but cannot abide it when people whatever their age cannot string a sentence together without prefacing every other word with 'fucking'

I never swore in front of my kids when they were little, apart from in extreme circumstances . I wouldn't have liked them to swear then but with one 15 year old and a 17 year old, yes they swear if we're talking about something where it seems appropriate. I now do it in front of them a bit, not every other word or in normal conversation but if I'm cut up on the road and the other person could have caused an accident I'll say what a dickhead or someone's an arse. Swearing has its place in life in my view. I don't like gratuitous swearing but there are times where it is wholly appropriate - and satisfying.

Ha, just realised my two examples weren't that extreme - dickhead and arse - I do chuck a few other things in too - what a fucking dickhead etc. I think if it is every other word then it doesn't have that much of an impact. My kids never heard me say it much growing up so when I did say just fucking do it, they listened as they knew by then I wasn't messing.

There are times when only the word "fuck" will do though, aren't there? I typed There are times when only a fuck will do, and deleted it!

"Knobhead" is also a satisfying word to use.

Imnot I think it's important to teach children that these words are generally not acceptable and people may be offended with them, but I'm not going to minutely alter my daily language so my child doesn't accidentally say 'fuck' in front of a shocked adult. It really isn't that big a deal. My parents swore around me all the time as a child and I didn't swear in front of my teachers or grandparents because I knew I would get in trouble for it. Pretty simple really.

Yep. my teenage children swore in front of me.

They are just words.

" Also I'm a little uncomfortable with the stereotyping of Irish people & swearing...."

well there is more than a pinch of truth in it tbh....

We all swear in our household, but not often - swearing remains reasonably meaningful of strong and justified emotion. Not censored, not encouraged. Just there, as part of the vocabulary repertoire.

But I don't think the DC swear when we have visitors around.

There have been some interesting points raised here. adds you heard your parents swearing around you all the time so you accept that it is normal to swear and it is part of your daily language.

My parents never swore in front of us - unless my dad accidentally hit his thumb with a hammer (where I think it is entirely justified). OH's mum never swore in front of her children either. So we both grew up not using swear words in normal conversation at home.

I swore like a trooper at school of course because I wanted to fit in. I also had a broad cockney accent (again to fit in because I was accused of being posh). I had a pretty savvy boyfriend at 16 and he told me that I would never get a good job unless I stated speaking properly, so I moderated my language and toned down my accent.

After leaving school I have had sales and marketing jobs, nearly always customer facing, so again swearing would not have been part of my daily conversation.

I still think that anyone with any common sense would tone down their language according to who they are speaking to. You wouldn't swear at or in front of your children's teacher or a health professional or when shopping, or would you?

Imnotbeingyourbest

"I don't like hearing too much swearing (although I do swear sometimes) and we don't swear in front of our dc. I hate hearing swearing where small children are within earshot aswell. To those who say it's just words etc. presumably you have no problem with young dc swearing? I cringe when I hear dc swearing. "

Well no. Because have most have said they feel that swearing in context is ok. So whilst I think fuck is a perfectly fine word I acknowledge and respect that my friend/vicar/granny may not.

"The posters who are most indignant about intelligence/swearing seem to be at pains to emphasise how clever they/their children are are!"

You understand that those things were posted in response to the posters saying that swearing is a sign of being thick or uneducated? So not 'at pains' - just countering a rather stupid proposition. If someone posts that thick uneducated people swear it's hardly surprising that people reference their/their child's education.

I'm a terrible swearer . Ds is 15 with problems and is a terrible swearer too, at people and at things. Dd1 never swears in front of me though surprisingly though although does when with her mates.

The word cunt though. Horrible horrible word and it is banned from my house, it's the one word ds won't use either, I chased him up the stairs with the broom once so he knows it a no go.

Well, I'm Irish, I don't tend to be sweary (I don't regard feck, for example, as a swear word). My parents never swore.

On one occasion during my misspent youth, I did swear in front of my mother and she basically said that I would never have heard that kind of language out of her or Dad so I should know it's not acceptable in their home. I think that's fair enough - context is everything.

Basically, that's my approach at home, too. I don't want my children swearing in my home, in front of their teachers or grandparents - basically, I want them to know that if it's not a verbal currency in the context they find themselves in, it's not on. I think learning to moderate your behaviour to the norms of your situation is quite important.

My 17 yr old dd swears like a navvy, as do I.

When she started high school and got bullied, I encouraged her to use whatever words she wanted to use (to me only) to express her feelings and get the stress off her chest. From then on, she asked permission to swear in conversation with me, and as she grew up and was clearly aware of context, I let her swear as and when. She has never sworn agressively, or in front of anyone other than me and her Dad. It's all about context and maturity. Sometimes, for some people, clean language just doesn't cut the mustard.

I find it hilarious that someone would say bugger but draw the line at cunt.
Nowt wrong with a good clean bit of sodomy then. Tally ho!

We don't tend to swear as a family, so I rarely hear either of mine swear, and if I do, it's an indication that something is going badly wrong.
DS still remembers the last time he heard his dad swear...about 9 years ago.
I assume they might well when out with their mates, doesn't bother me.